Madman
by KAStone
Summary: Lyn Tharen's life is changed forever when her best friend is shot in cold blood. However, things get even more bizarre after she meets a man called the Doctor who says he's still alive. Decided to revamp. Completely new prologue and different point of view.
1. Prologue

**So I decided to completely revamp this thing, changing points of view and adding a few things, starting with a completely new prologue. I made just a quick glimpse into Lyn's past before the Doctor meets her.**

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**Prologue**

_**Crying silently. I mean children cry because they want attention. 'Cause they're hurt or afraid. When they cry silently it's 'cause they just can't stop. ~ The Doctor (The Beast Below, Season 5, Episode 2)**_

The little girl clutched tighter at the angel her grandmother had given her. Tears streamed from her eyes and it was hard to breathe because she was trying not to be heard._ No one wants to hear you cry_, she thought to herself, _no one cares._ This thought caused a new barrage of tears to burn her throat and eyes. Her parents had been fighting again. They rarely fought with her, mainly because she had learned when to stay out of the way, but she really just couldn't take the yelling anymore. _It's not fair. I didn't do anything wrong._

But she had. She knew it was her fault they were always angry. She was hungry, but she didn't dare ask because she knew they couldn't afford it. She never dare ask for anything new. Not anything. They would always get mad at each other when she asked. She always tried to be good and do her best in school, but she was never good enough. Even her perfect test scores and advanced classes didn't make them happy.

This time, things had escalated way too quickly. Dad was yelling. Mom overreacted. They both got more angry. Doors slammed. Things broke. The girl, Lyn, hid in her room in the dark, pretending to be asleep. She cried silently into her pillow holding the little wooden angel her grandmother had sent her this morning as a ninth birthday present to her chest.

_Please,_ she thought, _Please save me. Please make it stop. Please take me away._ She didn't know who she was talking to; the angel, her grandmother, or the universe in general. She just wanted it all to stop.

That night, just like many others, eight- _No. Nine today_- year old Lyn Tharen cried herself to sleep.

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**There's your new intro. I hope it was enough to get you to hit Next Chapter. I appreciate all of you already for making it this far.**


	2. Part 1

**Okay, now for the actual story.**

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**Part 1- A New Story**

_**I better get going. Things to do. Worlds to save. Swings to... swing on.**__**  
~The Doctor (The Power of Three, Season 7, Episode 4)**_

The day didn't look any different. The sun was shining. There was a breeze, but it wasn't cold. It was a day of rare beauty in the gloomy gray city. Everyone would be outside today, enjoying the sun, but not Lyn.

This day, the 14th of July, didn't look any different from any other day, but that couldn't be a more incorrect observation. Everything about today was different. Everything about today seemed wrong to Lyn. She tried to go through my routine, tried to make everything feel normal, but how could she? She got her morning coffee from the same cafe on the corner, just like she had every day since she met him. But today, the empty chair across from her just made her feel even emptier inside. Her throat burned from holding back tears as she left the cafe. She had to fight the urge to slam the door and managed to make it to the playground across the street before she collapsed and cried. With her head in between her knees on a swing in the middle of a public park, Lyn cried. She realized that this was the first time she had cried. Not ever, obviously, but since he died. Died. The word finally joined in the turmoil coursing through her soul. Died. Such a simple word. Only four letters. Why did it cause her so much pain?

_That's what's different about this day_, she thought, _Yesterday, he died. Yesterday, he died, so today he's gone. He'll be gone tomorrow and the next. He'll be gone forever._

She took a deep breath and sat up. There weren't any children at the park this early, but there were people on the streets. For some reason, she found herself angry at them. There they were, just going about their lives like nothing's wrong. _Everything's wrong,_ she wanted to shout at them. _Everything's wrong and you don't even care. You don't even know._ If only attacking these innocent people would bring him back.

Lyn felt someone sit in the swing next to hers. She turned her head, ready to tell the kid to go away, but when she saw who it was the words caught in her throat. He wasn't a kid. He was a man probably a few years older than Lyn. He was dressed like her grandfather though, wearing a brown suit and red suspenders. His jacket had patches on the elbows and his pants ended just above his ankles, making his legs look awkwardly long. Topping off his goofy ensemble was a bright red bowtie. His face matched his clothes. He had a large chin and a strange nose, and his hair was long, dark, and flippy. He was smiling like he was about to say something incredibly clever.

"Hello," he said, "you look sad."

He spoke with a British accent._ Of course_, Lyn thought to herself.

She had suddenly no clue what she was supposed to say to this strange man in the bowtie. she found her mouth forming words that she didn't think she would ever be able to say. She hadn't been able to tell herself something she was about to tell to a stranger who was probably psychologically disturbed.

"My best friend is dead," she said.

The man nodded, looked down, and said, "Mine too." They sat there for a while, silently brooding over their different problems. Then he asked simply, "What's your name, Sad Girl?"

"Lyn Tharen," she answered. Then she added out of habit, "Only one n. What's yours?"

"The Doctor," he stated.

"The Doctor?" Lyn asked, puzzled, "Doctor who?"

"Yes. I mean, no. It's just the Doctor. No anything else, just the Doctor." His voice was assisted by his hands waving in little circles.

"Okay," Lyn replied. _Yep, definitely disturbed._ She didn't want to leave him though. The way he reacted after he mentioned his friends had made her realize that she wasn't alone. "Tell me about them," she urged.

The sadness in his face went away as if he flipped a switch. "It was a long time ago. It's fine now. What about you?"

She had hardly ever talked about him when he was alive. She didn't know how it would affect her, but she might as well find out now. _Nice call Lyn, talk about him to a total stranger who is most definitely either high or insane or possibly both._

"Well," she began, "he was English."

"'He'?" the Doctor said, raising his eyebrows, "Are we talking about more than a friend?"

"No," she said, "we were just friends." And it was true. They were just friends. Maybe in a few years she might have been able to picture something, but as of that moment, they were just friends. "His name was Alex. He came here to Denver once in school, fell in love, and decided to move here on his twentieth birthday. We met in that cafe," Lyn pointed across the street, "We started hanging out more, and eventually he became like my brother. I probably spent more time at his apartment than my house." After she started talking, she couldn't stop. Lyn told the Doctor everything about Alex. She told him about his funny hair that he prided himself in getting to stick up in just the right way. She told him about his bright sky blue eyes framed by dark lashes and boxy hipster glasses. She told him about his hilarious personality that always managed to put a smile on her face and about the times when his genius almost matched up to hers. When he spent hours trying to cook and they just ended up going out anyway.

Lyn found it comforting to talk about him, and, surprisingly, easy, until she got to the part where he died.

"Last night," she continued, "we weren't really on the best of terms. He had been really unresponsive lately and just not himself, but whenever I tried to talk to him, he would get so angry. He never used to be angry, ever. A few days ago, he hit me. Not hard, it didn't hurt. But he was so night he stormed out of his apartment," she started having to talk through tears, "I heard a noise. It didn't sound like gunfire, but I opened the door and he was lying in the hall. He made it maybe ten feet before they shot him. The cameras weren't working so they don't know who did it," she could hardly talk now she was crying so much, "I watched him die. I called an ambulance, but they took too long. He was already gone."

She had to stop there. The Doctor got up from his swing and hugged hugged her. She fell into his arms and cried into his shirt. They both slid to the ground. She had almost forgotten about him, lost in her thoughts. They sat there for a few minutes, then he took her hand and walked her back home where she lived with her parents. His exit from her life was surprisingly anticlimactic.

Lyn spent the rest of that day and the next few at home in seclusion. She'd met the Doctor on Monday and it was now Thursday. Both of her parents had left for work. She was awakened from a fitful, barely sleep-like trance by a frantic knocking at the door.

"Okay! Sheesh. Settle down! I'm coming!" she yelled as she uncoordinatedly fumbled around the mess in her living room to answer the door. It was the Doctor dressed in a bright red plastic coat and drenched like he'd been out in the rain. The moment Lyn opened the door he ran up to her, grabbed her shoulders and started yelling.

"You said you didn't hear gunshots! Why wouldn't you hear gunshots after someone fired a gun? Granted, there are different types of silencers, but then you wouldn't have heard anything. But you said you heard something. What did you hear?"

Lyn had just woken up and was very disoriented, so it took her a few seconds to filter through everything he said. "I don't know," she answered, horribly confused, "a noise."

"A noise?" he said accusingly.

"Yeah, a noise," Lyn defended, "like a noise. I don't know!"

"What kind of noise? What did it sound like?" he shouted.

"Like a whoosh-y sound," she said.

"Whoosh-y?" He made a face like he was disgusted by her answer. "Whoosh-y? Is that really the best you can do?"

"Well I don't know how to describe it!" She was shouting now too as she racked her brain for a decent analogy. "It was kind of like a lightsaber, when it opens. Like whoosh." She used her hands for emphasis on the last woosh.

"A lightsaber!" the Doctor said, the disgusted look on his face becoming more prominent. "A lightsaber! You know you humans can be very un-helpful," he turned, threw his hands up and once more mumbled, "A lightsaber." He was halfway out the door before he turned around and grabbed her again. "A lightsaber!" he shouted and kissed Lyn on the cheek, "Oh, you are clever, aren't you? Come along now." He pulled her toward the door.

She wrenched away. "No," she demanded, "not until you explain you madman."

He couldn't wipe the look of childish excitement off his face as he announced, "Do you know what this means, Lyn-With-One-N Tharen?" he paused for a moment, "It means that your friend is still very much alive." And with that he bolted from the room.

Lyn stood stunned for a moment before she realized what he'd said and chased after the madman in the raincoat through her yard in her night clothes. She was calling after him the whole time, but he didn't look. He stopped at the end of her driveway.

"Hey!" she shouted, "I'm not going anywhere with you until you answer some questions!"

He was wandering around with his hands out like he was afraid of bumping into something. "Well, go ahead then," he said calmly.

"Okay. I will." She paused, not knowing where to start. "You said human. You said, 'you humans can be very unhelpful.' Why did you say human?"

He turned to Lyn and raised an eyebrow. "Really? That's where you want to start?" She nodded. "Alright then. Well, if you're as clever as you said you are, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out." He went back to his looking for invisible walls.

He was right. It wasn't. "So you're not then?" Lyn asked, "Not human?"

"There you go," he replied.

"Okay." Lyn was trying to keep her mind focused and her emotions removed so she could process more clearly. "Then what are you?"

"Time Lord," he said staying intent on whatever it was he was doing.

She paused for another moment, waiting for him to elaborate, but realizing he wouldn't, continued with the more pressing question. "How do you figure Alex is alive? I watched him die. I held him while he died."

"That man wasn't your friend."

"What?"

"I will explain everything in a moment, but it's not safe to talk here. I think I've already said too much." He stopped looking and froze with his hand in the air, palm flat. "There you are!" he said. He put his other hand up and, looking an awful lot to Lyn like a mime trapped in a box, muttered something along the lines of, "Now where is your door, you tricky box you?"

She felt like a total lunatic standing next to this madman, shivering outside in her tank top and sweatpants. That is, until he found the door, pulled it open and she finally saw it. The bright blue box seemed to materialize out of thin air. The logical side of Lyn said that it had been there the whole time, just invisible, but she still found herself staring dumbly at the Police Public Call Box.

"There we are!" the Doctor announced, "I can never remember where I leave it when it's invisible."

Lyn was still speechless as he gestured inside.

"In there?" she asked, "Just the two of us?" She became all of a sudden more conscious of her choice of apparel. She grew uncomfortable at his suggestion, forcing down memories long repressed.

"You'll understand in a minute," he promised.

She gazed intently into his eyes, searching for a reason to trust him. Somewhere, she must have found it, because a moment later she followed him into the Police Box- and immediately ran back outside, completely dumbfounded. She circled around it, trying to find some sort of sense. Running back inside, she gasped, "It's-it's. Bigger. On. The inside."

He smiled his goofy smile as he said, "Yeah, yeah it is."

"But-but," she stammered, trying to formulate an intelligent sentence, "How?" That plan failed.

"Time Lord technology. It's really just a simple spatial displacement field. Basically another dimension attached to a physical, exterior shell."

"But what is it?"

"It's my TARDIS."

"TARDIS?"

"Yeah, TARDIS. Time and relative dimension in space."

"What is it though?"

"It's a spaceship," he said, "and a time machine."

The science geek in Lyn was about to have a meltdown of pure excitement. "Really?" she asked, not even trying to hold back the grin plastered on her face.

The Doctor met her smile and raised his eyebrows a bit as he agreed, "Yeah."

The TARDIS, as the Doctor called it, was much, much bigger on the inside. The center sported a large, polygonal structure covered in buttons and switches and lights and other things that Lyn couldn't pinpoint a purpose for. The room itself had a metallic floor that became transparent as it approached the center. Weird spacey-coral-looking things looked like they were holding up the vast ceiling. There were a few doors and other entrances that made Lyn wonder just how vastly larger the inside was.

The Doctor ended her moment of silent fascination by shooting off to the large setup in the middle of the box which Lyn could only assume was some sort of control panel. The Doctor began flipping switches and pushing buttons that she didn't even bother trying to figure out the purpose of all while going off on another rant. "So," he exclaimed, "Your friend dies of a mysterious bullet that wasn't a bullet, and now a crazy man shows up out of the rain and tells you he's alive. Not only that, but that madman isn't a man at all, but an alien who shows you his time-travelling phone box," he paused and met her eyes, "What do you say, Lyn? Let's go find your friend. Unless you have any more questions?"

She was still standing by the door, dumbstruck, at this mad stranger. With all of the crazy thoughts already spinning through her head, one question stood out.

"Yeah," she said, finally re-acquiring her usual confidence, "What on Earth are you wearing?"

He glanced down at his rain clothes then stated defensively, "It's a rain poncho. I wear a rain poncho now. Rain ponchos are cool."

Lyn broke out laughing at the serious look on his face, "Okay, Madman."

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**Love to know what you think so far!**


	3. Part 2

**Been a while, I guess. Quick chapter. Hope you like it!**

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**Part 2- Why Him?**

_**Hey. Do you mind if I tell you a story? One you might not have heard. All the elements in your body were forged many many millions of years ago in the heart of a faraway star that exploded and died. That explosion scattered those elements across the desolations of deep space. After so, so many millions of years, these elements came together to form new stars and new planets. And on and on it went. The elements came together and burst apart, forming shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings. Until, eventually, they came together to make you. You are unique in the universe. And there will never be another...Getting rid of that existence isn't a sacrifice, it's a waste!  
~The Doctor (The Rings of Akhaten, Season 7, Episode 7)**_

"Excellent," the Doctor beamed, obviously taking her comment about his poncho as her decision to stay. He went up to the console explaining, "Now, the reason I was here in the first place was because I've been following the extraterrestrial signals being given off, apparently, by your friend and I 've come to the conclusion that someone made a duplicate of him. A clone if you will. A Cyber clone."

Lyn found herself growing anxious waiting for him to continue his train of thought. "Is that it?" she prodded. If that was all maybe he truly was mad. Maybe this was all just a huge mistake. Why did she trust him so much?

"So far, yes," he admitted.

"Okay, well, why?"

"That's the fun part," he announced, becoming more excited again, "I don't know!" Lyn had no clue how that made it more fun. "Several theories, though. Most prominent: invasion." He emphasized the word 'invasion' with his hands as though it was the most amazing, innovative thought ever.

"An alien invasion?" Lyn asked skeptically.

"Yep. Specifically a Cyberman invasion."

"So they don't want us to know we're being invaded, so they make these duplicates so we don't notice?" Lyn asked, trying to fit together puzzle pieces with square edges and round holes.

"Now that's what you'd think, but no. Because there's only been one, as far as I know, and that's not what Cybermen do. They don't do stealth. They take people and 'upgrade' them, make them one of them. The last time I encountered the Cybermen on Earth, their ship had crashed and they were converting people. Converting. Not replacing. Maybe they're trying to cover their tracks a bit better. Probably my fault, that. But anyway, why would they be infiltrating? And why not make more than just the one?"

"Maybe it's not them," Lyn offered, "the Cyberman-thingys. I mean, if you're different from them, there's probably other aliens, yeah? And they can't all be nice."

"No, no it is," he rambled on, barely hearing her, "I'm sure of it." He bolted around the central console and picked up a vial. From where, Lyn couldn't guess. He held it up at her eye level, tapped it, and said, "This is what was in your friend's chest. It must have been encased in some sort of device and the sound you heard, the 'lightsaber', was said device disintegrating, releasing these."

Lyn took the vial from the Doctor. Looking closer, she saw encased in the glass what looked to be lead filings, only they clearly weren't because lead filings wouldn't crawl along the sides of the glass individually. They moved like ants. Lots of tiny, grey, shapeless ants. "What are they?" she asked.

"They're microbots," he explained, "tiny electromagnetic termites from the planet Mondas, the same homeworld as the Cybermen. I don't even like having them this close to the console. Their pulses mess with the TARDIS's navigating system. That's why it took me almost a week to get to you. I meant for it to be the same day." He seemed intent on making sure she knew that point. That he meant to come back sooner. She couldn't have cared less, but it seemed important to him, so she nodded to show she heard.

But really her attention was focused on the glass vial she still held up to her eyes. "Is that what shut down the CCTV's? Their pulses?" she asked. Then without waiting for him to respond, she continued with her deductions. "It would have been enough to shut down the entire central nervous system of a human, then, or whatever it was that was impersonating Alex. That would have stopped the heart. And the casing you mentioned disintegrating would have left the 'bullet' hole, making it look like a gunshot. So it's kind of a failsafe then?"

The Doctor looked down on Lyn with a smile of pride and a look in his eyes that Lyn could only describe as nostalgic. "You're just as clever as I remember," he stated. When Lyn gave him an inquisitively suspicious glare, he quickly resumed his normal, fumbling self and explained with his face turning red, "From earlier, that is. Today. From before. You- you're very young. How old are you?"

"Eighteen," she said hesitantly.

"Right," he said with a snap-point of his fingers, "of course." He turned away from her and leaned on the console, embarrassed.

Lyn decided to ignore his strange behavior, still somewhere hoping that this was all some sort of crazy dream or messed up hallucination and this Doctor was just some twisted figment of her imagination. _If only_, she thought.

"Yes," the Doctor said suddenly.

"'Yes' what?"

"Yes, it's a failsafe. Which means something has gone wrong. What part of England was your friend from?" he asked, his eyes fixed on his console.

For some reason, this casual, completely normal question infuriated Lyn. It was the way he talked about Alex, like he didn't even matter. "His name is Alex," she corrected coldly, intentionally using the present tense verb, "not 'your friend', Alex."

The Doctor seemed slightly taken aback by her sudden assertiveness. He turned to look her in the eyes. "Sorry," he said honestly. "Where was Alex from?"

"Piccadilly," Lyn answered, beginning to cool down, "but he hadn't been there in months. Why's it matter?"

"Because we need to know why. Why him?" He sighed and collapsed, discouraged into a chair that gave slightly under his weight, staring off into the distance. This wasn't making sense to Lyn. None of it. It was all moving too fast. She was still trying to come to terms with the fact that Alex was alive somewhere. She didn't know why she was so ready to believe this madman, or help him, but she was. For Alex. For Alex, she'd figure this out. She absentmindedly ran her thumb along the smooth glass of the vial she was still holding when a thought occurred to her.

"What do you mean, these were in his chest?" she asked, already expecting what his answer would be.

He knew that she already knew, so he didn't explain. He simply said, "I need to know, Lyn. I need to know what the Cybermen want from Alex. I need to know what they're trying to do. I need to keep _you_ safe." He turned to look back at her when he emphasized the 'you'.

The determination in his eyes was clear, but it made Lyn feel even more lost and out of the loop. "Why?" she asked, taking a seat across from him that for some reason she hadn't noticed was there before, "I'm nothing special."

The Doctor dropped forward onto his knees and took her hands gently in his. "No Lyn," he said, "you are more than special. There are so many things I wish I could tell you right now, but I can't. Not if I don't want the fabric of spacetime to crumble. Just, please, _please_, promise me that you'll never, _ever_ think that way about yourself because, let me tell you, I've been travelling for a _long_ time and I've been just about everywhere and I've never met anyone who wasn't important. And no one is as important as you."

Lyn didn't know how to respond to that. No one had ever thought so highly of her before, and the look in his eyes screamed that he was telling the truth. So she ended up just staring at him while he smiled that adorable half-smile at her. Luckily, he broke the awkwardness with a quick pat on her cheek before he stood up and went back to the controls.

She decided to use his openness as an opportunity to say something she'd been meaning to. "So you're a time traveller then," he nodded, "and this is your time machine." He nodded again. Lyn stood up and went to lean on the console so she could see his face. "Prove it," she dared.

His eyes lit up like a child's would when you asked to play their favorite game. "As you wish," he said as he, with a flourish, flipped one last switch.

The whole room began to shake as the TARDIS took off into the time vortex. Lyn was scared for a second, being caught off guard, but quickly overcame it as she heard the Doctor laughing. Following his example and holding tight to the console, she actually enjoyed the rush of travel.


End file.
